


The (High)Road Less Taken

by MelyndaR



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 13:10:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7440496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelyndaR/pseuds/MelyndaR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock, John, and Mary are a "thing." Then Irene shows up and decides to insert herself into it all. John doesn't like this idea; Irene tells him he needs to at least try - they both do - for Mary's sake, if nothing else, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The (High)Road Less Taken

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what this is... It's kind of a spoof off of a different, much bigger idea that I've kind of shelved for the time being because it's so large. So, here's this instead. Enjoy!

Maybe they’re crazy; maybe they’re not. Sherlock being a thing with John and Mary was different enough, strange enough – crazy enough. But the world tilted on its axis again – perhaps more dangerously then half of them realized – when Irene suddenly showed up in 221b. For the second time, Sherlock found her sleeping in his bed like she felt she belonged there – and after their two years together whilst destroying Moriarty’s network the first time, he half wondered if she didn’t _actually_ belong there.

Strange thought, with John standing beside him, mouth gaping _because wasn’t she supposed to be dead? SHERLOCK?!_ Mary was there too, first just over Sherlock’s shoulder, and then… ducking underneath his arm and darting to the bed, to Irene.

“Irene,” Mary murmured with wide eyes, gently shaking the other woman’s arm. “Irene, wake up.”

“You _know_ her?” John and Sherlock asked together, the doctor’s voice considerably sharper than the detective’s until said detective put a calming hand on his arm.

A question that answered itself easily enough when Irene shook herself awake enough to mutter with bleary-eyed surprise, “Aggie?”

The arm under Sherlock’s hand went vey still and tight, and John asked carefully, “Who _the h***_ is ‘Aggie?’”

Mary looked up at John and Sherlock while still stooped over Irene, and her expression was answer enough. Regardless, she confessed, “Agatha Grace Rene Alistair.”

“And _you know her_?” John repeated, gesturing to Irene, who was looking between the married duo as she slowly sat up in bed.

Mary nodded, and Sherlock was quick to circumvent that line of conversation by asking Irene, “What are you doing here? What do you need?”

Irene shrugged, all but mute with surprise as she kept staring at Mary in obvious surprise. She was still speaking to Sherlock as she muttered, “I… This is the closest place to home that I could think of, and I felt like coming home. That’s all; I’m not in trouble.”

It was John who read between the lines and said a little harshly – he always got cranky when AGRA came up – “What, you just missed Sherlock Holmes, is that all?”

“That was all I was thinking, yes, but-” here Irene caught Mary’s hand in her own, blue eyes searching blue eyes as she said, “You… I missed you far more. It’s been too long.”

“Six years,” Mary murmured, and only then did Sherlock tear his gaze away from Irene long enough to notice that Mary still seemed as shocked as ever to see Irene. She sat down on the bed beside Irene, adding, “Mary, by the way. My name is Mary Watson.”

Irene nodded, then blinked as if coming to a realization as she glanced at John, then back at Mary.

“Yes,” Sherlock supplied the answer to the unasked question, stepping closer to the bed. “They’re married.”

Irene raised her eyebrows, thinking something she wouldn’t say aloud before she asked him, “And how do you fit into that?”

Sherlock looked uncertainly between John and Mary. That was a question he still wasn’t sure how to answer. John’s hand fell to the middle of Sherlock’s back then, as he, too, stepped closer and supplied evenly, “He just… fits, exactly as the three of us want him to.”

“Ah,” Irene replied, looking between the three of them. “I see.”

And in her eyes, Sherlock could tell that she was already plotting, trying to figure out a way that she could make herself fit within this unusual arrangement. Oddly enough, he realized he couldn’t wait to see how she did it.

* * *

Mary and Irene knew each other – from _before_ , from the past that was tucked away in the burned flash drive – that much was obvious from the very second they saw one another. Sherlock, John, and Mary had never really talked about AGRA before now, though, and Irene was smart enough to pick up on that instantly. So she didn’t bring it up either.

She just… found herself a different way to fit in with the trio – not based on her past with any of them, but on her all-but-unspoken desire to be a part of their future. Irene had come back to be with Sherlock, they knew that, but circumstances – and, Sherlock thought, Mary’s presence – had changed her plans in a moment. Easy enough when it came to Mary and Sherlock.

John, however, was steadfastly suspicious of anything pertaining to his wife’s old life, and that now included Irene, apparently.

When Mary expressed her concern to Irene a month after the Woman had shown up, Irene waved it away. “He didn’t like me the first time we met; I knew he’d be the hardest to… win over, but I can do it, darling.”

“Oh,” Mary grinned coyly at her. “It’s not you I doubt; John’s just stubborn – and angry – especially about this.”

Irene blinked, asking dryly, “Are you doubting my ability to be persistant?”

Mary snorted, but didn’t even dignify that idea with a further response.

Spurred by her conversation with Mary, though, Irene found a quiet minute to sit down with John… sort of. While he was updating his blog, she sat down on the edge of his desk and asked frankly, “What’s it going to take?”

He looked at her sideways. “Take… to what?”

She pretended to pout for a second. “To make you love me, of course.”

He scoffed and turned his attention back to his laptop. “I’m perfectly happy with Sherlock and Mary, thank you.”

“Well, I’m not – and neither are they, for that matter.”

“What?”

She sighed, dropping a solid half of her pretences as she told him, “We’re worrying Mary. She doesn’t like that we’re so… distant from each other.”

John shrugged, pointing out, “Aren’t you supposed to be gay?”

“And Sherlock is ace, and you and Mary are straight; what’s your point?”

He leaned back in his chair, abandoning the laptop for the moment as he asked, “What could you possibly want from me?”

“There are different kinds of intimacy besides sex, you know – why else would I have come in search of _Sherlock_? I like… talking to you, all three of you. I want you to be happy that I’m here. I want us to be able to make Mary happy, too.”

“Why should I care if Mary’s happy?” John asked, so blunt and quick that Irene was pretty sure he didn’t register the words until they were already out of his mouth.

The sentiment, rife with underlying anger, didn’t startle Irene as much as it maybe should have. She just shot back the truth as she had observed it in the past month. “Because she’s your wife, and you still love her, even if, at the moment, you’re having trouble liking her and who she’s capable of being. But you _do_ love her… so eventually you’re going to get around to taking the high road. You’re _going_ to forgive her, and you’re _going_ to embrace her, because – face it – _she’s what you like_.”

John rolled his eyes, demanding dryly, “And what exactly does that make you?”

It was Irene’s turn to shrug. “A new piece to the puzzle, a little bit different, but no less exciting. You’ll come to like me too, if you’ll let yourself – maybe, _maybe_ …” Her hand carefully found his on the desk, and he didn’t comment when she held it. “You’ll even learn to love me, just as you’re going to _relearn_ how to love Mary properly.”

“Oh, will I?”

There was less hardness in his tone, and more teasing where there had been dryness and sarcasm. She smiled, and nodded sharply. “You will.”

“If I choose to take the highroad,” he reminded lightly, but he squeezed her hand – almost experimentally – as he said it.

Irene nodded again, suggesting, “Do you care to try it… taking the highroad?”

“Sounds hard.”

“It sounds worthwhile to me – and, besides, you like challenges.”

“I think,” John said slowly, thoughtfully, “Over the years since I met Sherlock, I’ve learned to even love some of them.”

“All I need is for you to love three of them.”

John nodded, looking down at their joined hands before he said quietly, “Well… then, what would it hurt to try?”

Irene smiled genuinely at him then. “Good enough.”

And it was.


End file.
